Mental Health Commission

About the Mental Health Commission

The Mental Health Commission is an independent organisation set up in 2002 under the Mental Health Act 2001. The Commission has responsibility for the regulation of all mental health services, both public and private.

A ‘mental health service’ is a service which provides care and treatment to persons suffering from a mental illness or a mental disorder under the clinical direction of a consultant psychiatrist.

The Mental Health Commission’s main functions are:

to help make sure that mental health services maintain high standards and good practices

and

to protect the interests of people detained in approved centres.

The Mental Health Commission and the Inspector of Mental Health Services work with mental health services through regulation and inspection to continuously encourage services to update and improve the effectiveness of their complaints systems in order to improve overall quality of mental health care and treatment.

The Commission has responsibility for the regulation of all mental health services both public and private.

Complaints and the role of the Mental Health Commission

If you have a complaint about a mental health service, you should in the first instance contact the provider who is required by law to have a clear complaints procedure in place under Article 31 of the Mental Health Act 2001 (Approved Centres) Regulations 2006.

If you contact any member of staff of the Mental Health Commission in relation to a complaint, you will be advised to contact the service provider as the Mental Health Commission does not handle individual complaints.

If you contact the Mental Health Commission in relation to a concern about a service, you will be directed to the Inspectorate of Mental Health Services if appropriate.

The Inspectorate logs all concerns that relates to mental health services and these are taken into account on inspections.

If there is a serious risk to the health and welfare of service users the Mental Health Commission may undertake, or be required by the Minister for Health to undertake, an investigation into the safety, quality and standard of a particular service.